Another Follow Up

In Class last week we discussed the reading assignment that was given on science. it dealt with science being a force unaware of itself and other material. this is just a short blurb to restate for all and those in the class and anyone else, the movie I recommended earlier "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is another good look at the institution of science, science itself, American science etc.

A Follow up

Last week in class we viewed another classmates blog on robotics, specifically hands. The post on robotics was very well done and was very interesting. On this note there is an old movie it made me think of from my childhood that it a classic but has scenes in it relating to this blog. The movie if you haven't guess is Short Circuit.

This is just to give people an idea of what/how science has changed in the last 20 years. the opening in the movie shows the scientists making a robot hand move. In the students blog, there are several hands that are being worked with all more complicated than the last. For a good read and enjoyable I recommend you check it out.

The Art of Material Making

While sitting in my forging and forming class today, we had a guest speaker come in to show and discuss how to make knives. He is a "semi-professional" blade smith and is also a student in the class. I found the class very interesting and learned quite a bit on the process of making a knife and how standards are assessed for knife makers to be considered a "Master Blade Smith"

For the communicating science class I am in we are talking about relating to other blogs similar to ours and I have come across a great blog post on Movies Blog which is a blog I follow that ties these concepts in.

For a start, the art of making a knife takes hours and tons of dedication to produce a good product. As we learned in class the student just sold a knife for $1500 and said it took around 80 Hours to build. This is partially due to his material which is Damascus Steel which is used in many types of knives and swords around the world for its durability and for the intricate designs that can be made into it.

Now for Hollywood. Many of us have seen the X-Men movies and most everyone also knows who wolverine is.(if not good idea to check it out) he is said to have adamantium skeleton that is stronger than any material known to man at that time. He is outfitted with blades (knives) that come out from his hands and are pretty remarkable. To actually make these in the movie the portray him as being down for days, almost dying, and losing his memory to coat him in these blades.  Using the above knowledge of knife making, this would takes probably hundreds of hours to achieve however, Hollywood can make these "Blades" for less than $30.

Due to some technical difficulties I cant link the video but here is the link to making Wolverine Claws in Hollywood.

Pure Strength

Many of us love movies where the portrayal of the character has some sort of "brood" strength. Movies like Rocky, Rambo, Conan, and many others. For this my focus is on the actually of what some of them are portrayed to do when things get sticky. To start I would like to look at the Scorpion King. Having just re watched this movie the other night there are several scenes which while are cool to watch are just a fetch of the imagination. To start towards the beginning of the movie, the "Rock" (Dwayne Johnson) has a bow that only a select few can even fire due to his training and strength. In several scenes, he fires the bow which in turn sends an enemy flying through the air in the opposite direction of the arrow. While laughable, not realistic. Arrows were/are made to have a sharp pointed end that is made to puncture and cut through whatever it hits so while it may stop someone, it would send them flying backwards through the air. Another movie where this occurs is the new Rambo. There is a scene where a man is shooting a .50 caliber sniper rifle. He  shoots two guards and sends them both flying backwards through the air. Once again, bullets are made to "rip" through someone and do devastating amounts of damage so while it would stop someone the likely hood of them flying backwards through the air is just not in the reality realm.

I enjoy movies just like the rest of you and am not trying to take away from what the directors and actors are showing, seeing a scene where these things happens is very funny, cool and exciting at times. The purpose however of this blog is to show where science and Hollywood don't match up on all fronts and the imagination is left to create. The instances mentioned above are not the only two of there kind I'm sure that if you watch a little more closely, you can pick out several other instances in movies where all these things happen.

Hope you have fun trying to pick out these things and others mentioned by this blog.

Compare and Contrast

So this week I felt like doing a little compare and contrast of two shows. The first set of shows are shows like house, NCIS, CSI etc.. These shows are great and utilize tons of science in the solving,catching, finishing cases throughout each show each week. I'm sure many of you have seen these and all like to see the "Dramatic" finish at the end and how they catch the suspects and then go on about airing the next show next week. I fall into the category of enjoying these shows and if by some chance you haven't seen them, I recommend them. The opposite to these are actually very close to them funny enough. Also on my recommendation list are shows like 48 hours, snapped, forensic files etc... These shows are more documentary than fictional surprise however, they show real cases and the real science behind them. When I say real I am talking about time line and facts. In the previous shows I mentioned, the science that is used is sometimes accurate but not realistic when it comes to time. Example of this is finger printing. In most of the first shows, the finger prints when finding a suspect are done in  day or even a matter of hours whereas in the latter, they take weeks in some cases months. It is these subtle differences that many people take for granted or have a misnomer about what it really entails to perform these tasks. Same goes for blood identification and/or bodily identification. Just some thoughts on several good shows with some very good similarities but also worlds apart.

Grading evaluation

I feel that I have exceeded the standards for the first grading period due to having multiple posts every week, multiple comments

Classic Part 2

If you remember from the last post, Indiana had to jump so he threw the idol and we showed with the math that it was less than likely. Now, interestingly enough right before switching the idol with a bag of sand at the beginning, removes sand to try and trick the trap. Based on the calculation from the last post and repeated again below, making the same assumptions the bag of sand would only weigh 4.41 lbs. You would think an archaeologist would know better when trying to trick a mass sensitive booby trap that gold and sand are very different.

Equation for reference:

 See video in last post to reference to scene

Another Classic Part 1

For this blog and the next I have chosen another classic movie that I enjoyed watching as a kid. I have chosen to do it in 2 parts. In the first we will look at the first movie "Raiders of the lost Ark" There is a scene in the beginning where Indiana is is running through the temple carrying a gold idol head. He comes to a spot where he needs to jump and throws the idol head. There is a flaw in this scene, see if you can find it.
<br/><a href="http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/indiana-jones-and-the-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-rolling-boulder-clip/2t4s08jk?src=v5:embed:&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: Rolling Boulder clip">Video: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: Rolling Boulder clip</a>

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Based on the calculations above and assuming the idol is approximately 1.0L in volume, the idol would weigh about 43 lbs (equivalent to 3-15 lb bowling balls) if solid gold.

Blog Self Interview

In class tonight, we have been assigned the task of this blog to self evaluate our blogs. Here it goes...

What is the purpose of this blog? Become active in publicizing science communication, also to show and encourage people to see what movies and Hollywood do/show for entertainment and where the boundaries get stretched as far as realistic vs. imagined.

Movie of the week

For this post we have been talking about framing, communication, bias and other things. The movie that came to mind for me to post about is a film by Ben Stein called "Expelled: No intelligence allowed". I feel that this movie is a pretty good representation on how things are framed or potentially biased when dealing with science. The general overview is Ben Stein addressing how and what is taught in America vs. other countries, what is included and excluded in different literature's and for what reasons are some things left out of teachings and why. For myself, I felt the movie was pretty good at just presenting facts but, other people I know feel that there is a slant in his presentation due to his beliefs. I can recognize that there is the possibility that people see bias in the movie because bias or certain "framing" can take place without the writer, performer etc.. even knowing they are doing it. Overall this movie is one that is well done, well presented and generally just a good documentary.

A side note.

This is a bit off topic but in class this week we were asked to blog about one of the readings we did. For this I have chosen to comment on a paper ( Groffman et al ) that we read for class that dealt with climate change. I felt that the paper was written pretty well overall but personally would have liked to see some of the data be supported better. By this I mean that the data was presented, some in graphical form, with details like what the sample population (not size) were left out. Data can be presented in many ways with the potential to skew or frame things in ones favor due to bias that one may not even know or is aware is happening. I am not saying this is wrong I just feel that a more convincing argument overall would be to support your data with as many of the facts that are possible in regards to alleviating bias or skewing to some readers. With that said I do feel it was interesting to hear what people are still saying given that this is a current topic amongst many individuals. thinking about this it makes me concentrate more on how I personally present my data and in what context I should be presenting them in for all my own posts.